Combining Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and Social Entrepreneurship (SE): A Conceptual Framework for Social Value Creation

Abstract

The multi-stakeholder view of corporate social responsibility (CSR) argues that businesses must create value for all the stakeholders, including society at large, not just for owners/shareholders. Creating shared values for all the stakeholders is essential for corporate sustainability. To achieve this goal, companies have to perform on all the three parameters of triple bottom line (TBL) - planet (environment), people (social) and profit (economic). Profit making is the reason for companies’ existence, they are capable of performing on economic parameter, but need cooperation from others to outperform on other two parameters, i.e. social and environment as well. Since, in the process of social entrepreneurship (SE), using their creativity, innovation and entrepreneurial skills, social entrepreneurs primarily aim at solving social and environmental problems in sustainable manner, and create social value, there is potential to combine CSR and SE for social value creation. Thus, the present paper presents a conceptual framework to combine CSR and SE for meaningful social value creation. It also discusses different opportunities to combine CSR and SE (with some examples) in the process of social value creation that can inspire future initiatives for sustainable development and inclusive growth of the countries.